Taxi Journey

80,000 pounds for the world's longest taxi ride.

After a 15-month circumnavigation of the globe in a taxi, during which they broke two record books, three fellow students returned to London today for a welcome. At Covent Garden in London this early today, Paul Archer, Johno Ellison and Leigh Purnell came in their dark taxi K-reg (affectionately known as "Hannah") after a journey that lasted over 43,208 hours.

Having collected over 20,000 for charitable purposes since the trip began in February 2011, the three traveled four continents and 50 different nations and started a total taxi charge of almost 80,000 pounds when they were back on UK ground. She saw the unbelievable journey negotiating about flocks of Armenia lambs, escaping the Taliban in Pakistan and even being detained by the secret police of Iran, where Paul was later expelled as a suspicious apy.

It' s On The Meter Expedition' last stage was hosted by the UK Red Cross charity project Get Taxi, which plans to give five percent of the total bill to the British Red Cross. Initially conceived as an outing from London to Sydney, the journey successfully earned the boys 15,000, 5,000 less than their last destination.

As well as providing the rest of the cash, Get Taxi also provided the trip with petrol, lodging and state-of-the-art Global Positioning System (GPS) trackers used in their own fleets of taxis that the flight crews and Hannah need to complete their round-the-world journeys. "Except for a few furry episodes when we were detained in Moscow, detained by the secret police, returned to Britain and denied access to Moldova because of the loss of the relevant documents at frontier checks (fortunately the President himself personally pardoned us!), we took some great souvenirs with us.

Without Hannah, our dear and trustworthy Rossin, we would of course not have been able to do all this! "It was the boys' own taxi ride home one late afternoon, after a good sleep on the tile, that gave them the chance to take a ride around the globe in a dark taxi. "Why don't we see if we can take the longest, most costly taxi ride in the whole wide range and do everything for charity," Johno, 28, Leeds, remember.

Speaking about the exposure, Neil Fullman, CEO, Get Taxi UK: "Boys have a lot to be proud of. And, of course, we are excited to have been able to help them accomplish an epic journey that few, if any, will ever have.